Friday, 3 January 2014

'On the Ownership of Books'

As a rule I don't reproduce entire articles or passages written by others; maybe, a few quotes in context of a review or a general post. This time, however, I’m making an exception because I felt readers would enjoy it as much as I did (in context of my commandments in an earlier post). The article is titled ‘On the Ownership of Books’ and it was published 85 years ago, in 1928, in The Literary Review [Vol.1, No.1, June 1928] of State Teachers College, Farmville, Virginia. Today, the college is known as Longwood College affiliated to Longwood University.

The author of the article is one Frances Volk who, I think, was a student at State Teachers College. She was also the vice president of Argus Literary Society, VA, in 1926. Frances has written on a topic that is very close to our hearts—books—and her views even nearly a century ago were just the same as ours today. Some things never change. Read on…

On the Ownership of Books

By Frances Volk

There is no frigate like a bookTo take us lands away,Nor any courses like a pageOf prancing poetically.This traverse may the poorest takeWithout oppress of toll;How fragile is the chariotThat bears a human soul! — Emily Dickinson

There is a special appeal about the books which you own. No other books are quite like them. No matter how much you like the books which belong to the library, or to your friends, or even to your family, none of them quite fits into that place which is reserved for your very own books. How proud you felt when you were a child and were given a book, and looked inside to find a book-plate on which was inscribed the words: "Mary Ellen — Her Book."

By owning books, I do not mean merely possessing them. Anybody can have books—whole rooms full of them, and never own a one. You have to love them and become a part of them before you own them. Next to reading books yourself, nothing is more pleasant than lending your books to someone else who will cherish them. You get a vicarious enjoyment out of it almost equal to your own first reading of the book which is borrowed.

And new books! The feel of them! To hold in your hands a new volume in its unsoiled cover, its pages freshly cut and waiting to be turned, with the pugnant odor of printer's ink still clinging to it, and to know that it is your own, "to have and to hold,"—that gives a thrill which any book-lover knows.

Owning new books is really detrimental to the moral character, however, in a mild sort of way. You steal time from yourself in order to read them. It takes a very Puritan-like person to resist the call of a new book. What if you will have the book all the rest of your life? You want it now, and you usually take it now, too.

Old books are just as delightful as new ones. I do not mean to slight them, but old books are like grown-ups. You take your time and talk to them sedately, but new books make you feel impulsive like children, and you just have to stop and play with them.

Just as you can never fully appreciate flowers until you have raised them, tended, watered, and picked them, so you can never truly know the value of a book until you have owned it, marked it, and loaned it. Then it is a "joy forever" provided, of course, it is duly returned.

I like that quote, Prashant, that 'books are like dogs' - very apt. This was a lovely piece of writing. I love reading ABOUT books almost as much as I do reading them. P.S. I rarely lend books. Period.

Yvette, thank you! I really liked the way Frances Volk wrote, such fine prose. Like you I enjoy reading about books and the people who write them, as in writers at work. I usually give away books that I know I won't be holding on to.